The Institute for Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development (IEED) invites you to a Brown Bag Seminar on: Management and Entrepreneurial Finance and Meet the Editor Seminar.

Date: Thursday, May 1st, 2014Venue and Time: LT3, 12:30 - 3 PMSpeaker: Professor Silvio Vismara, Associate Editor of Small Business Economics and the Director of the CISAlpino Institute for Comparative Studies in Europe at the University of Bergamo (Italy) and University of Augsburg (Germany)Topic: Signalling quality in science-based IPOs: the interaction of prestigious underwriters, venture capitalists, and university affiliations*

Schedule

12:30 - 1 PM: Light Lunch and networking (Breakout space LT3)1 to 2 PM: Brown Bag Seminar2 to 3 PM: Meet the editor seminar for Small Business Economics The seminars will be moderated by: Alfredo De Massis, Director of the Centre for Family Business, IEED

+ The Meet the Editor seminar on publishing in Small Business Economics will run from 2 to 3 PM. Please let us know if you would like to attend.

This paper contributes to the literature on quality signals of science-based firms, by investigating whether the affiliation with prestigious universities affects their valuation at IPO, and how it interacts with the endorsements by prestigious underwriters and venture capitalists. Based on a sample of 254 European biotech firms, we find that the affiliation with a university is valued by investors, and this is particularly true when the company is tied to a prestigious academic entity. We confirm previous results on the relevance of the certification provided by top-tier underwriters and venture capitalists. However, taking into considerations their interactions, we find that signal provided by venture capitalists shades, as it is moderated by its overlapping with the endorsements by reputable underwriters and universities. The signal provided by VCs shades, as it is moderated by its overlapping with the endorsements by reputable UWs and universities.